> -----Original Message-----
> From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu [mailto:piclist-bounces@mit.edu]On Behalf
> Of Brooke Clarke
> Sent: 28 January 2007 20:41
> To: piclist@mit.edu
> Subject: [EE:] How do you create and understand circuits?
> 
> 
> Hi Lindy:
> 
> Sometimes when I look at a schematic it makes no sense at all.  But when 
> redrawn it becomes completely understandable.
> I think that some schematics were drawn on purpose to obfuscate how the 
> circuit works or were drawn by a publisher to have a certain width or 
> height so they fit their page layout. 
or they are consider the schematic capture to be a data entry step for the PCB layout and don't think about it too much.

> I recently was working with one 
> of these where the signal flow was like a book, i.e. left to right, down 
> a line, left to  right.  For me it's much clearer how it works if it's a 
> linear left to right flow.
doesn't information tend to feed in both directions in most cuircuits

>  Also using a lot of ground and Vcc symbols 
> removes lines that really have little meaning, leaving the important 
> stuff.
yeah

> This is much more understandable than having the pins in the same 
> relative location as on the actual part.  For logic parts where there 
> are multiple gates, each gate is a seperate component but they all have 
> the same ID such as IC4.
That has its pros and cons, it makes it easier to follow the diagram but much harder to translate from the diagram to the physical when troubleshooting.


> Recognize orders of magnitude.  Often part values are chosen so that the 
> impedance of the part is either very much higher than the adjacent 
> circuitry or very much lower.  Examples would be things like pull up 
> resistors or bypass capacitors.  Once you can see these parts you can 
> look past them to the more important stuff.
agreed.



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